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On the Solar Origins of Open Magnetic Fields in the Heliosphere

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David M. Rust1, Dennis K. Haggerty1, Manolis K. Georgoulis1, Neil R. Sheeley2, Yi-Ming Wang2, Marc L. DeRosa3 and Carolus J. Schrijver3

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A combination of heliospheric and solar data was used to identify open magnetic fields stretching from the lower corona to Earth orbit. 35 near-relativistic electron beams detected at the ACE spacecraft "labeled" the heliospheric segments of the open fields. An X-ray flare occurred <20 minutes before injection of the electrons in 25 events. These flares labeled the solar segment of the open fields. The flares occurred in western-hemisphere active regions (ARs) with coronal holes whose polarity agreed with the polarity of the beam-carrying interplanetary fields in 23 of the 25 events. We conclude that electron beams reach 1 AU from open AR fields adjacent to flare sites. The Wang & Sheeley implementation of the potential-field source-surface model successfully identified the open fields in 36% of cases. Success meant that the open fields reached the source surface within 3 heliographic deg of the interplanetary magnetic field connected to ACE at 1 AU. Inclusion of five near misses improves the success rate to 56%. The success rate for the Schrijver & DeRosa PFSS implementation was 50%. Our results suggest that, even if the input magnetic data are updated frequently, the PFSS models succeed in only ~50% of cases to identify the coronal segment of open fields. Development of other techniques is in its infancy.

Subject headings

solar-terrestrial relations; solar wind; Sun: corona; Sun: magnetic fields; Sun: particle emission


Dates

Issue 1 (2008 November 1)

Received 2008 March 14, accepted for publication 2008 July 17



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